“Carter is held up as the model of the ineffectual president — a saint of a man but an ineffectual president. And so when people compare Obama to Carter, that is an attack,” said David Gergen, a senior political analyst for CNN who also worked in the Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton administrations.

The comparison to Carter, Gergen said, is more of a danger sign for Obama than it is a reality because it shows how the storyline has changed.